News Satire Roundup: February 20th

Sunday, February 20

·        Recap of the Week – Canadian trucker protests

o   John pointed out that the nearly month-long protest in Ottawa seems like overkill for railing against vaccine requirements for Canadian truckers, given that two Canadian trucking associations have disavowed the protests and 90% of truckers are vaccinated.

o   In looking at some of the leaders of the protest movement, John discussed that one of them is in a band and, naturally, had to share footage – “I will say this: it is hard to think of a song more thematically appropriate to her cause than ‘Get Down with the Sickness,’ except for maybe ‘My Heart Will Go On,’ in that it’s both Canadian and also inextricably linked with completely-avoidable tragedy.”

o   Another leader of the protest has expressed views that have nothing to do with vaccines, such as white supremacist rhetoric – “Let’s just acknowledge, ‘strongest bloodline’ is a remarkably-bold claim from a man who looks like someone is slowly poisoning Guy Fieri.”

·        And Now This – ABC 3 Morning News

o   This was a montage of the “existential despair” of the 4 a.m. news team – my favorite bit was one anchor’s sad soliloquy about the old motorcycle jacket in his attic.

·        Main Story – Critical Race Theory

o   Perfect response to someone’s screamed remark at a school board meeting – “Hold on, America can’t be racist because of Obama?? I don’t know if you remember the 2008 election, but things got pretty racist back then. People kept saying he was born in Kenya, people said he was a secret Muslim, and then a few years later, we elected that people president.”

o   Of course, many of the people vehemently against critical race theory don’t actually know what it is, as Tucker Carlson himself admitted on air – “Wow. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a person confidently complain about something just seconds after admitting they don’t know shit about it.”

o   Kimberlé Crenshaw, who created the legal framework of study for real critical race theory, explained that it’s not about “blaming” white people for being white, but instead about examining how racist laws and policies in America’s past continue to affect Americans today, learning from this past “so we can become that country that we say we are.”

o   Teachers themselves pointed out that some teachers using misguided methods to teach about race do happen, and it shouldn’t mean banning all teachers from teaching anything about race – “Exactly! Teachers are human and can make mistakes. Frankly, I’m surprised they don’t make more! They wake up insanely early and spend all day getting low-key roasted by teenagers for an amount of money best described as ‘completely harrowing.’ The very fact that any student in America knows what a covalent bond is is a fucking miracle, and every adult involved deserves the Congressional Medal of Honor!”

o   But even though the boogieman created over “CRT” is all smoke and mirrors, John pointed out that it’s having real effects on schools and students – “The thing is, even a manufactured panic is a panic.”

o   Great line – “Here’s the thing: you can ban all the books you want, you can try and legislate it away, but as any Black woman on The Bachelor can tell you, talking about race is unavoidable.”

o   We looked at some “interesting” remarks from a woman immediately following her insistence that racism isn’t a problem in her town – “Wow. When you respond to someone mentioning young Black men would like to be treated better with automatically envisioning them dressed terribly and acting disrespectfully while being arrested by the police, you are telling on yourself, Patty. You are snitching on your very soul!”

o   As usual, we had a good mic-drop ending – “For generations and generations, we have been telling kids fairytales about race in this country, and maybe it’s time we stop doing that. Because all it’s done so far is get us to the point that we’re at right now, with full-grown adults insisting America can’t be racist because we elected Obama twice, that racism will go away if we just don’t mention it, and that Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech wasn’t an aspiration we have yet to fulfill but some kind of magic spell that ended prejudice then and there.”